Our story
1930 – Nikolaos Orfanakis starts the factory, grinding not only his own olives, but also those of the entire village, Sokara Heraklion. His ally, like all the farmers of that time and the main driving force was an animal, specifically a horse which, wearing a special uniform, turned the millstones.
The millstone, which may have been one, two or even more, was tied with wooden parts to the lower end of a vertical axis, called an axis, and turned in a basin, the so-called threshing floor, where the olives were ground. The shaft was connected to a horizontal stick, the yoke, on the edge of which the mule or horse was harnessed.
During the second stage of processing the fruit, they pressed the pulp, the dough of the olive, in a press, with a screw originally made of wood and later of iron. In the press, the factory workers pressed three times using their muscle power. First, the virgin olive oil was extracted, and then hot water was poured in to extract the remaining oil.
Orfanakis family, like many other families, fell victim to the Nazi occupation in Crete, when the Germans killed the family’s children.
1963 - 1966
1963 – 1965 The grandchildren will take over to continue the business. Stelios Orfanakis continued his profession as an oil producer with the family’s first oil mill being built in Sokara. The process was very different compared to how we know it today, with the development of technology. Everything was done by hand.
Since then, the emphasis on detail has been characteristic of the Orfanakis family. The “boxades”, the hair sacks into which the oil pulp was put to be pressed into the press, were made by special craftsmen only in Mytilene. The “heroes” of the time were the “pressers” and the “boxadiastes”. The pressers especially had to be experienced workers, because this job required real art.
1966 – Separators came to make the life of oil producers simpler, as they separated the oil from the water and specifically the separator took the whole mixture and cleaned the water and oil separately. Once this process was completed, the olive oil was transferred to the special containers and then to the houses.
1971 - Today
1971 – Centrifugal separators make their appearance. They are the machines that now automatically do the process of separating the katsigaros (amurca, also known as olive oil lees) from the oil and thus high quality olive oil can be produced. Production reached up to 1000 kg per hour.
1990 – Today – Evangelos Orfanakis, the first grandson, started working hard in the family business, which is still managed by himself and his son Dimitris Orfanakis. The machines are constantly evolving and production can reach up to 10 tons per hour.
Production
The production, processing, standardization and bottling is done exclusively by the Orfanakis family. The quality of the olive oil is stable and unchanging as, in addition to the family’s own olive groves, the company cooperates with guaranteed and certified producers.
Export
The Orfanakis olive mill has associated its name with quality extra virgin olive oil, has entered into partnerships with several secular Greek islands and exports both to Europe and America.